


Traveller's Lodging

by ivy



Category: The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England - Ian Mortimer
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivy/pseuds/ivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Travellers are conspicuous, it's true. What <em>is</em> that man's business?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traveller's Lodging

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaesa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/gifts).



It must be newest half-cocked idea from France.

A man came into the front room looking for a night's stay and something to eat, but he was dressed most strangely. Mary was serving the drinks and Harold in the front too, but it was Mary who noticed and came running back to tell me. How that girl will ever manage I shan't know, but it's not my affair. It's not the first man dressed thus, so I went to ask him his business.

He told me in mangled English--a foreigner for sure--that he was travelling, a new man, a merchant maybe--his accent certainly was peculiar. Certainly fancy enough dress; he was attired in a rich dark cloth that fell down from his shoulders in heavy pleats, a well-made pair of shoes, and well made hose. 

I let him in and he sat at his spot but glanced around incessantly. 

"Ma'am, please, the man isn't pleased, he's giving all of us the strangest looks," Mary burst back into the kitchens. I turned around again; the new servant was the most forgetful girl who had been born, and the soup was already burning. 

"Doesn't he have food?"

"He does ma'am, but he's all peculiar. He won't sit still, keeps looking at me and around at everyone. He looks like he's run away." Mary shifted from foot to foot.

John came stamping in the kitchen, his nose red with the cold, to warm up. I said to Mary to get back into the front room and ignore the man if she must, just as John dropped into the chair by the wall. He had hay stuck in his hair and smelled strongly of horses, though it made little difference in the front room, crowded with travellers as it was.

"Stable's full."

"And fine by me, the rooms are all full. We'll putting some up in the stables at this rate," I retorted, and swung the heavy pot off the fire. "Mary!"

When she didn't appear I went out to find her myself. She was being detained by a group of travellers in the corner, and the half-frown on her face suggested that she had been there for awhile. I cast my eye over the rest of the travellers. There were two sitting close to the door; they were slumped over their table, though one of them was still eating slowly. The more lively folk were clustered in the center of the room, where Mary had already put down the bread and stew. One of the men saw me in the doorway and shouted "Goodwife! Give us some more bread!"

I shouted back that he ought to wait and that if he wanted more he could pay more, and looked for the strange man. 

Mary hadn't been wrong. He was sitting very straight and stiff, like the bench was uncomfortable and he was afraid of touching the men next to him, who were eating studiously. Instead, he darted glances around constantly, even twisting all the way around to look behind him.

I went back into the back to retrieve the stew, and pointedly leaned over the man. He shrank back from me and I got a good impression of his face, though the lamps were too dark to make out fine detail: heavy, strong brow, deep-set eyes, and smooth cheeks. He didn't say anything, but he wouldn't meet my eyes; his slid from my face to my shoes, and then sideways to look at the bench. 

I shrugged and left him to his business. It was none of mine if he was demon-haunted or the like; I retrieved Mary from the apparently engrossing fellows and put her to serving the soup.

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a Real Fic with a Real Plot but then Real Life also bit me where it hurt. I'm sorry kaesa! SOMEDAY. I hope you like this snippet of a scene--I love the prompts you left in your letter.


End file.
